technology

How is "great content" found?

Posted 3 Sep 2011 by Laura Scott
Dead Sea Scrolls photo

In a provocative assessment of Google’s Google+ strategy of launching a “recommended users” list (a topic of its own), Robert Scoble shared an assumption behind his conclusions:

If you have great content you will get found by one of the folks on this list.

It’s an interesting claim. I've heard this kind of thing for years, and always wondered: Is it true? My intuition always said it's not. So last night I questioned Robert's statement in a tweet, and he replied:

@lauras it's pretty rare that good content doesn't get shared with others.

How do we know that it's "rare" that good content doesn't get shared? We know only about the good content we've already found. We have no idea how much good content has not been found. So how can we lay any odds as to how common or rare it is for good content to be found?

And "found" ... by whom?

The waste that doesn't go away

Posted 18 Mar 2011 by Laura Scott
photo of an Advanced Test Reactor core, Idaho National Laboratory

This is not intended as a political post, but I'm sure it will be taken as such by some, because so much discussion about nuclear power seems to be wrapped up in political dogma.

Watching the horrors of the multiple tragedies in Japan has left me with a deep feeling that sometimes we really can be arrogant about our technology.

The power of the tsunami that wiped out so many towns just boggles my mind. Every new video of those few minutes that I see on tv or the web stuns me. Cars pushed along. Buildings torn loose, floating like rafts. Ships whipped around like toys. And the debris, all the debris, piling on itself. Tonight I saw footage of a village where its huge tsunami walls, intended to protect them, were ripped right out of the sea floor and toppled over. Entire towns missing. People gone by the thousands.

I pant, you pant, we all pant for iPad?

Posted 3 Apr 2010 by Laura Scott
iPad

There's a whiff of desperation in the air. The iPad is now supposed to be the white knight that can save publishing. Is it?

I wrote before how the iPad will define a new market for consumer technology. There's no question of the appeal of a simple, extremely portable device with a decent-sized screen to peruse news headlines and browse magazine articles. But the mainstream media hype seems perhaps overblown a bit.

Despite the restrictions, the iPad's full color touchscreen is seen as a game changer for media companies that have long struggled to make money off digital content, which most consumers expect to get for free or at a very low cost.

Book publishers see a new chance to get their electronic offering right -- and win more bargaining power if the iPad emerges as a viable rival to Amazon.com Inc's Kindle.

Ada Lovelace was a Drupalchick

Posted 24 Mar 2010 by Laura Scott

Okay, it's a whimsical title. But on this Ada Lovelace Day, I was thinking about how, if Ada Lovelace were alive today, she no doubt would be in technology. After all, the creator of the first "computer" wouldn't stop there, would she?

In my daily life I get to work with some amazing women who are working in, with or on Drupal. I wrote an appreciation over at PINGV Creative.

Are you wanting an iPad?

Posted 14 Feb 2010 by Laura Scott

I find myself wanting an iPad to read the news in the morning. It would be nice for magazines, too, I think. Of course I'm assuming that the usability will be very good. Maybe I'm wrong.

But I think the iPad will be a big success.

What do you think? Is the iPad a must-have device for you?

Whither Twitter? Silicon Valley businesses pressured to do business

Posted 12 Nov 2008 by Laura Scott

Every morning I reach for my iPhone to get the latest news from Bloomberg. (I'd probably go to the NY Times first, but their app is still far too unstable and slow to be of much use.) This morning, one headline jumped out at me:

Twitter Shuns Venture-Capital Money as Startup Values Plunge

Well I had to read that article. And it seems to hint at the piercing of the Silicon Valley Bubble -- not a floating bubble leading to a crash, but rather the isolation bubble, like Bubble Boy. What? Silicon Valley is Bubble Boy?

Evan Williams raised $22 million in funding for Twitter Inc., a Web site used by everyone from Britney Spears to Starbucks Corp. to Barack Obama. Sales? Those could come later -- that was, until the economy tanked.

Brave new world? The creepy "clowd" and the loss of privacy

Posted 7 Jun 2008 by Laura Scott

I got a chill reading this post from Seth Godin:

So, very soon, you will own a cell phone that has a very good camera and knows where you are within ten or fifteen feet. And the web will know who you are and who your friends are.

What happens?

What happens is that you have no privacy. Seth sees a big upside.

See a dangerous driver? Send a video snippet to the clowd. The clowd collates that with a bunch of other shots of the same driver... busted.

Yet another Top 100 list! Cue the crickets!

Posted 20 Apr 2008 by Laura Scott

Now that we mere tech plebes have been blessed with yet another definitive "Top 100" list of bloggers, I can rest and relax, knowing that order has been imposed upon the universe.

...below are the top 100 tech bloggers/authors, based on the total number of headlines they have had on TechMeme from January 1, 2008 to today....Since a lot of the top leaderboard blogs are multi-author, this helps to shake out who’s actually writing the popular stories.

Pogue's Imponderables -- Answered!

Posted 18 Oct 2007 by Laura Scott

Some answers to David Pogue's questions about the technological universe:

* Why is Wi-Fi free at cheap hotels, but $14 a night at expensive ones?

Because you can afford it.

* What happens to software programs when their publishers go out of business?

They persevere on individual computers, in denial of extinction. Sometimes they're just so right you cannot improve upon them.

* Would the record companies sell more music online if it weren't copy-protected?

Of course. I'd start buying and downloading if they stopped treating me like a criminal.

* Do cellphones cause brain cancer?

No I don't know, but they do cause traffic accidents.

* What's the real reason you have to turn off your laptop for takeoff?

To annoy you.

* Why can't a digital S.L.R. camera record video?

Mine can. Yours can't?

Being the change

Posted 5 Sep 2007 by Laura Scott

I blogged the following on BlogHer , about the new O'Reilly series on Women in Technology....

If you just casually glance around tech departments in companies and tech-oriented conferences, it's easy to get the impression that there aren't many women in technology these days. Yet it's undeniable that women are making a big impact on the technology world. (If you think it is deniable, then please keep reading.) Exploring this subject is a special series this month on O'Reilly: Women in Technology. Every day this month, an accomplished woman in technology shares her thoughts.*

If you've seen O'Reilly books, you know that each topic area gets its own animal. Tatiana Apandi perhaps hints at a theme of the series by explaining why the O'Reilly animal chosen for this series is the lioness:

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